Five Quick Tips Regarding Sugarcane Irrigation With Drip Irrigation

Growing sugarcane through sub-surface drip irrigation results in a lot of sustainable economic, production, and environmental benefits. If you’ve decided to grow sugarcane with sub-surface drip irrigation, you’ve won half the battle! Reading these five quick tips will help you win the remaining half. This blog discusses five tips to help you optimize the benefits, efficiency, and sustainability of sub-surface drip irrigation (SDI) to grow more sugarcane.

What is Sub-Surface Drip Irrigation?

As a sugarcane farmer, you may be aware of the basic concept of sub-surface drip irrigation. Nevertheless, for the newbies, or farmers wanting to venture into sugarcane farming, here’s what is sub-surface drip irrigation (SDI). SDI involves the application of water through emitters turned on in the inner wall of the drip line. The typical discharge rate in SDI is in the rage of 1.0 – 3.0 LPH, which is the same as surface irrigation.

SDI helps farmers grow more sugarcane, improves crop quality, with an average of 4-5 ratoons. SDI works with every soil type, climate, and topographies. Besides, it helps maintain healthy soil moisture and nutrition level to ensure optimal productivity, quality, and, therefore, the marketability of sugarcane.

Of course, there’s much more associated with growing sugarcane through SDI. Netafim, the leading drip irrigation companies, provides the best guidance on SDI and helps make sugarcane farming a profitable venture.

5 Tips to Grow More and Better Sugarcane with SDI

SDI brings sustainable advantages, but only when you get everything right, right from the beginning. So, from choosing the right dripper types to selecting the appropriate layout and then determining the distance between the emitters, growing sugarcane with SDI requires you to go through a few factors to make it more productive. Netafim talks about all of them.

1.      The Right Crop Layout

Getting the crop layout constitutes a fundamental element. That’s because it is the layout that determines the water and nutrient efficiency to a considerable extent. Besides, it also helps you plan the drip lines and drive the efficiency of SDI. In this view, the benefits of sowing sugarcane in a line simplifies plowing and tilling and the application of fertilizers. Ideally, you must maintain a distance of 120 cm for single and 160 cm for the paired row.

Further, drip line spacing also plays a crucial role in delivering the required amount of water during the crop's peak growth water requirement and growth period. In this view, the suggested drip line spacing is within the range of 1.2 m to 1.8 m. It ensures an adequate supply of water during peak water requirement (6-7 mm). Besides, the reduced distance between the drip tape and crop root zone augments SDI efficiency.

2.      The Dripper Type

One of the most commonly asked questions associated with sugarcane irrigation is what kind of dripper I should use to grow sugarcane through sub-surface drip irrigation. Based on the observations, experience, and results, by far, the best dripper type to grow sugarcane through SDI is Pressure Compensated (PC) Dripper.

Leading drip irrigation companies like Netafim manufacture a range of inline drip products appropriate for sugarcane subsurface drip irrigation. PC drippers enable uniform irrigation by maintaining a constant flow rate, regardless of the working pressure. Besides, Netafim’s PC drippers come with an Anti-Siphon Mechanism (AS) that avoids the entry of contaminants into the drip lines, thus maintaining water and nutrient supply efficiency.

Aside from that, the wall thickness of around 12-15 mil is suitable for sugarcane grown through subsurface drip irrigation. Although yes, in some cases, you may require walls with higher thickness. Connect with Netafim for case-specific guidance on the type of drippers and its components to be chosen.

3.      The Main Line and Sub main Design

Designing the mainline and sub mains constitutes an essential concern. Sometimes, farmers use smaller diameter pipes to reduce the cost of the mainline and sub mains. Approaches like these prove short-sighted, as they contribute to electricity costs. How? Friction loss causes loss of pressure. Beyond 1.5 meters per second, you lose a considerable amount of pressure and increase pumping costs to achieve the desired pressure.

Ideally, you must maintain 1.5 meters per second for the mainline and 2 meters per second for the sub mains, depending on the situation. An appropriate design may cost you a considerable amount initially. However, considering the significance of efficiency and cost-savings in the long run, the investment proves worthwhile.

4.      Distance Between Drip Emitters

The distance between drip emitters plays a critical role in the flow of water, and therefore the growth of the crop as well. Drip emitters must be placed at a distance of around 25-30 cm. Such a distance allows quicker lateral water flow. It doesn’t let the water to flow downwards towards the soil, where it is either absorbed the soil or lost due to evaporation. Besides, it also keeps the strip alongside the row adequately hydrated.

On the other hand, placing drip emitters at a farther distance from the one mentioned above may result in the creation of dry spots or patches between the emitters and in a higher amount of water loss, thus affecting the water efficiency of the crop, and subsequently crop growth, over a while.

5.      Intercropping

Growing short term vegetable crops like cabbage and cauliflower prove highly beneficial from the viewpoint of productivity and monetary profits. Besides, in areas where continual and adequate irrigation is easily possible, cultivating a soybean or black gram row boosts the fertility of the soil and also augments sugarcane crop yield.

Partner with Netafim to Produce More Cane through SDI

As the leading drip irrigation products manufacturer and irrigation systems company, Netafim’s sub-surface drip irrigation enables a better and a higher sugarcane yield. Netafim’s team of sub-surface drip irrigation experts and sugarcane agronomists help Indian farmers design the best SDI for sugarcane and increase their productivity through a precision supply of water and nutrients. Connect with Netafim at https://www.netafimindia.com/contact-us/ for more insights and in-depth guidance on sugarcane SDI. Read more Sugarcane Drip Irrigation